ady
in distress, and I will meet you where you please, and tell you what
they say. Or, if you prefer to speak with them yourself, go back to the
inn now, and you will find them upstairs eating their morning dish of
fruit. Do as you please, but perhaps I shall be able to speak to them at
a moment when they are particularly well disposed. When they have dined
well, for instance, they are always in a pleasant humour. They often
give me a Giulio then.'

'You will do me the greatest service, my friend,' Cucurullo said. 'Pray
speak for me with your gentlemen, telling them that I came to you
entirely on my own responsibility. That is important, for I would not
have them think that my master would approach them through his servant,
which would be beneath their dignity and unworthy of his good manners.'

'I shall be most careful,' answered Tommaso blandly. 'But listen to me
again. If, for instance, my gentlemen should desire to meet your
gentleman and his lady in some quiet out-of-the-way place, in order to
talk over the circumstances at leisure, do you think there would be any
objection?'

'Why should there be?' asked Cucurullo in surprise. 'Are they not the
best of friends?'

'Indeed they are!' replied the other with alacrity. 'I wish you could
hear how my masters talk of the Maestro Stradella's genius, and of his
voice, and then of his noble air and manner, and of the Lady Ortensia's
beauty and modest deportment! It would do your heart good, most
estimable friend!'

'It is a pleasure even to hear you tell me of it,' Cucurullo answered,
much delighted, for he worshipped Stradella, and thought him perfection
now that he was at last properly married, and there was an end of his
love-scrapes, and of carrying letters to his sweethearts, and of silk
ladders and all the rest of it.

'I have not told you half,' said Tommaso readily. 'And now, as I have an
important errand, and my gentlemen are waiting to be shaved, I shall say
good-bye. Will it suit you to meet me this afternoon about twenty-three
o'clock, at the Montefiascone wine-cellar in the Via dei Pastini? It is
a quiet place, and there is a light white wine there which is cooling in
this warm weather.'

'I will be there,' Cucurullo answered with a friendly nod by way of
taking leave.

Though they had slackened their pace to an ordinary walk that suited
Tommaso's breathing powers, they had covered a good deal of ground in
the five or six minutes during which they had